Troy University News

September 28, 2004

Contact:
Andy Ellis or Tom Davis :
(334) 670-3196; tomdavis@troy.edu

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Troy, AL 36082
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Professor,Author Sena Jeter Naslund receives Hall-Water Prize at Troy University

    Professor and Author Sena Jeter Naslund, recipient of Troy University’s 2004 Hall-Waters Southern Prize, says story-telling is an innate part of human beings dating back to the days when prehistoric men painted pictures on the walls of caves.
   Naslund visited Troy University , Montgomery Campus Saturday to receive the Hall-Waters Prize during a ceremony at the Rosa Parks Museum and Library and to speak with participants in the University’s “Conflict in Southern Writing” Conference.
   The Hall-Waters Prize is endowed by TROY alumnus Dr. Wade Hall, an author and professor emeritus of English at Bellarmine College in Louisville , KY. Dr. Hall endowed the prize as a memorial to his parents, Wade Hall, Sr. and Sarah Elizabeth Waters Hall. The award is presented annually to a person who has made significant contributions to Southern heritage and culture in history, literature or the arts.
   “I love the act of writing,” Naslund said. “It is painfully hard sometimes, but that is not a negative thing. If I don’t have something to write, I feel guilty.”
   Naslund, a Birmingham native, is the author of six works of fiction, including four novels “The Animal Way to Love,” “Sherlock in Love,” “Ahab’s Wife” and “Four Spirits.”
   The idea for the novel “Ahab’s Wife,” a companion piece to Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick,” developed as a result of Naslund’s childhood reading experiences, as well as of those of her daughter. During a trip together, the two listened to several books on tape, including “Moby Dick.” Naslund was amazed when her 11-year-old daughter began to recite a speech given by Captain Ahab.
   “I remember thinking, what a shame that there is no great woman character in Moby Dick that my daughter could remember and recite,” Naslund said. The novel has received both the Harper Lee Award and the Alabama Library Association Award.
   Naslund’s latest novel, “Four Spirits,” chronicles the tragic events of the bombing of the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham as seen through the eyes of fictional characters. “The name of the book comes from the four little African-American girls killed in that horrible, violent act of terrorism,” Naslund said. “The power of that tragedy is revealed as fictional characters learn of the bombing.”
   Naslund believes addressing such events in novel form can have a benefit for the reader.
   “I think a fictional work allows readers to live the lives they cannot ordinarily through the use of imagination,” she said. “The use of imagination allows us to step outside of ourselves and into the skin of others and feel things we would ordinarily be unable to understand.”
   Naslund said she was honored to receive the award. “I greatly appreciate what Wade Hall has done through Troy University and what Troy University is doing through this conference,” she said.
   Naslund is a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa . She has taught at the University of Montana , Indiana University , Vermont College and, in 2003, held the Vacaa Professorship at Montevallo University . Currently, Naslund is the distinguished teaching professor at the University of Louisville and the program director of the Spalding University Brief-Residency Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing program.
   Naslund is currently working with Elaine Hughes on a commissioned dramatic script of “Four Spirits” for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival Theatre.